Breaking news!... Kirsty Wark swaps the autocue to take on TV comedy role
However, former news anchor and journalist Kirsty Wark has shown that she's game for a laugh, too, after sending herself up in a new Scots comedy show.
Ms Wark appears in Good For Her, on BBC Scotland, in a running sketch that follows a woman who can't stop speaking as if she's delivering the news.
As the gag continues in snippets throughout the show, the condition is seen to affect every facet of the woman's life.
In one scene, she and a man she has been dating go out for dinner in Glasgow, with the afflicted woman continuing her dry delivery when the dialogue is mere chit-chat.
The date is briefly interrupted by Ms Wark, who, it is made clear, is an old acquaintance of the central character – played by comedian and show writer Zara Gladman.
However, Ms Wark reveals that she too cannot converse without the same deadpan delivery.
Ms Wark, 70, is known for her austere presence and keen questioning on the BBC's flagship current affairs programme Newsnight.
She has covered several general elections and a host of major international news events, as well as presenting BBC2 arts programme The Late Show and fronting Words with Wark and The Kirsty Wark Show.
Ms Wark was named Journalist of the Year by Bafta Scotland in 1993 and Best Television Presenter in 1997. She was also honoured with a Bafta Fellowship earlier this year.
Never one to shy from controversy, she responded to a plea from Tory MP Andrew Rosindell for a return to broadcasting the national anthem by saying at the end of a Newsnight broadcast that they were 'incredibly happy to oblige' – before playing a clip of the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen, which was banned by the BBC when it was released during the late Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.
But Ms Wark has also previously taken a lighter approach to broadcasting, winning the Star Baker accolade in The Great British Bake Off, appearing in Celebrity MasterChef, and playing a cameo role as herself in Doctor Who and Absolutely Fabulous.
Ms Wark stepped down from Newsnight in 2024 and now presents Front Row on BBC Radio 4. She is also working on documentaries and her third novel.
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